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New Delhi : The NITI Aayog on November 30, 2018, organised a day-long dialogue on “Health System for A New India: Building Blocks” with national and international academia, practitioners, Indian policymakers and other stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem. The dialogue was the first in the series of NITI Aayog’s “Development Dialogues” that aims to facilitate multi-sectoral conversations on India’s developmental issues, which constitute a part of the country’s 15 Year Vision document.
The inaugural session was chaired by Dr Vinod Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, with participation of Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, Preeti Sudan, Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and Alok Kumar, Adviser, NITI Aayog. Dr Suwit Wibulpolprasert, Global Health Advisor, Government of Thailand, delivered the keynote address detailing Thailand’s four-decade journey towards Universal Health Coverage.
“This dialogue is a sign that Health has taken center-stage of the policy narrative. We must move towards breaking silos between various stakeholders in the health space, remove fragmentation between various initiatives, and ensure convergence between various ministries and also between Centre and States. Poshan Abhiyan and Ayushman Bharat can be an innovative model to view integrated health systems,” said Dr Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman, NITI Aayog, addressing the closing plenary of the dialogue.
The dialogue focused on strengthening and further building on the existing blocks for Health Systems for a New India and prioritised four critical health systems issues for discussion and debate. They included expanding resources for health through pooling existing funds, expanding the role of the government as a strategic purchaser from both public and private providers to improve quality of healthcare services, provision of equitable and integrated services, and leveraging technology as an enabler and aggregator.
The dialogue also deliberated convergence of fragmented building blocks of financing and service provision with each reinforcing the other, and moving from programmatic or schematic approaches to a systems approach to healthcare, according to a PIB release.
There was broad consensus that the development of a health system for India can lead to the growth of a healthy and globally competitive healthcare insurance and health service provision industry and more importantly, improved consumer experience and citizen trust in the healthcare system. Dr Paul emphasised that trust in the system will be key for building an efficient health system for a new India, which is inclusive, integrative and indigenous.
As Kant stated in the inaugural plenary, it is time to bring the patient to the centre of the health care narrative and the time has come to evolve a world-class health system which is transformative and uniquely Indian.